Coming this Fall! Add this to the new Elmore Leonard bio due out next month and I think you’ve got a pretty spectacular one-two combination of literary biographies over the next 3 months or so!

“Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” ~ Finley Peter Dunne My first newspaper editor taught me that back on Day One — I think about it every damn day.

Seems like a good time to revisit this... crimereads.com/activist-noi...

Why It’s So Hard To Find Small Press Books www.persuasion.community/p/why-its-so...

Thrilled to tell you I've just published a new episode of The Speakeasy podcast today. In this one, my guest co-host Stephen J. Golds & I have a great chat with our guest @tedflanagan.bsky.social about his debut novel, and much more. Links ⤵️⤵️ 🧵1/2

President Zelenskyy has been one of the greatest leaders of our time, guiding Ukraine through the darkest period of its recent history, rising up to Russia’s unwarranted aggression, being an inspiration to the Ukrainian people and ensuring that Ukraine’s voice is heard on the world stage.

This is a superb and impressively self-reflective demonstration of why Kash Patel is as wrong a candidate as anyone could possibly imagine for the sensitive position of FBI Director. Utterly missing: The humility to laugh at oneself. Bazinga! www.thebulwark.com/p/kash-patel...

Without a doubt — women are dying. Women who didn’t need to. Women who could have been saved by a simple procedure. There is blood on the hands of all republicans. As the father of a young woman, I am afraid of my countrymen and what they’re willing to sacrifice in the name of hypocrisy and avarice.

Random tidbit from my reading this morning: “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” ~ Carl Jung

Two great people talking books and writing? Hell yes!

Every year, we ask NPR staff and book critics to share their favorite titles in our annual Books We Love guide. Behind the scenes, it's fun to spot trends and see what gets nominated again and again.

“We are American writers, absorbing the American experience. We must absorb its heat, the recklessness and ruthlessness, the grotesqueries and cruelties. We must reflect the sprawl and smallness of America, its greedy optimism and dangerous sentimentality.

I have new holiday-themed micro-fiction, "Epiphany," up on PUNK NOIR! punknoirmagazine.wordpress.com/punk-noir-ma...

Behold, the magisterial splendor of the Flanagan Family Christmas Tree circa 2024 “Little full. Lots of sap.”

“You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.” ~ Nelson Algren

I talked to journalists and writers who have found a larger and more engaged audience for their work on Bluesky, without having to see “AI bots and Nazis” at the top of their replies. www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-...

Former journalist writes about being homeless in 2024 America www.esquire.com/news-politic...

To all who celebrate!!

Re-reading — and if you haven’t yet, definitely check this classic noir out!

One of the most beautiful, bleak, and powerful novels you’ll ever read. Will be thinking about this book for a long, long time.

Gift cards… the gift that gives the whooole year long

“The thing is you keep existing whether you have a plan to do so or not, until you don’t exist, and then your plans are meaningless.” ~ Rachel Kushner, THE MARS ROOM

“If I knew at the beginning how the book was going to end, I would probably never finish. I knew that Legs Diamond was going to die at the end of the book, so I killed him on page one.” ~ William Kennedy

Get those pencils moving, because our submission call for December's Stone's Throw is now LIVE: This time we want stories of gifts, and the wreckage they leave behind. For more information, see the call right here! www.rockandahardplacemag.com/stones-throw...